Once more I am a little slow to summarize our previous week in schooling. However, we had a truly excellent week!
Monday Jonas began with a review of his reading and building words. He wrote many of these words out for me but only after he'd read them aloud. Ronan practiced writing his R's and his name while Jonas was reviewing his reading. We moved on from there to math where we reviewed the concept of half. I used the kids' blocks to illustrate half and gave them a number of blocks to divide into halves. Ronan stuck with the blocks but I eventually gave Jonas 6 numbers to divide in half and write the answers in his book.
Before we were done with school on Monday we read some poetry and talked about rhyming. Then we played a rhyming game: If I say _________, you say _________. At the end of our rhyming practice I gave the kids each a set of words and a blank space beside each word for them to write a rhyming word.
We practiced our violins together and then we were done with school for the day. Jonas is beginning to play Good King Wenceslas in preparation for Christmas. I hope to cover several Christmas carols so that we can play together by Christmas.
After horseback riding lessons with Ms. Monica on Tuesday we returned home to study Election day and voting! We accomplished this through a short reading about elections followed by yes or no statements about this reading (similar to True/False). We talked about who our current president was (Obama) and left a blank space open for writing in who won the election (Obama).
We discussed the voting process as well and then held our own vote for what we wanted to eat for dinner: chicken or ribs. We constructed a voting booth and ballots. We talked about voting privacy and made a graph of our results. Chicken won.
Last but not least we colored pictures of the American flag. Ronan got his colors right but put all his red stripes together and all his white stripes together. Jonas colored it beautifully.
On Wednesday Jonas built sentences from sightwords and Ronan practiced O's and N's. After reading and writing we talked about some plant vocabulary in Spanish: planta, flor, hoja, arbol, semilla, tronco... and the kids drew pictures representing the different words.
We had violin practice again and Ronan worked on playing his open strings without screeches. Jonas worked on his GM scale and Christmas carols.
Thursday we talked about how to tell what direction you are going when you are outside (based on the direction of the sun and time of day). They drew the sun traveling from east to west on their compass.
When we were at the farm-stand for our CSA share I had the boys inventory (through pictures) the kinds of vegetables we got.
Friday we played our rhyming game more and Jonas learned three new sounds (l, o and n) in lesson 7 of his reading book. I helped him write a sentence he wanted to write for grandma about horses also: Horses eat grass.
We have been trying to document most of what we accomplish in school but, as always, we do more than gets recognized in the books. We play Uno, practice rhyming, talk in Spanish, and many other things that are difficult to document in the boys' notebooks. I will continue to explore new ways of recognizing these extra things.
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Oops...Friday November 2nd, 2012 (a bit late)
This Monday in school Jonas and I began once more with a reading and writing lesson. Lesson 4 in his book was a review of all his previous sounds and an introduction to our two single-letter words: I and a. We wrote a sentence using each of those and he practiced all of the sounds he has learned in lessons 1-3. He also practiced reading words comprised of those sounds: mad, sad, it, did, fist...
Ronan practiced writing his a's and t's (his choice) and made great progress in his handwriting. Then he wanted to draw a rainbow, and he told me that rainbows need water and light to exist (I think he learned this on "The Cat in the Hat, PBS kids." I helped him draw a rainbow with the right amount of spaces for colors and he colored it in with the colors: ROY G BIV.
Also on Monday we talked about the concepts of more than, less than and equal to. I showed Jonas and Ronan the symbols and we used blocks to decide which pile had more than, less than or the same number as the other pile. Then for Jonas I wrote out a page full of pairs of numbers and asked him to tell me which was greater than, less than and equal to it's pair. He breezed through the exercise like he'd known it forever. Ronan did quite well too, although I had to help him figure out which symbol to put he understood the concept.
Both boys practiced their violins.
On Tuesday the boys had riding lessons with Ms Monica and helped clean one really messy stall. After this we came home and they continued their studies on the directions (N, E, S, W). We used a place-mat map of the US and I asked them which state on their map was the furthest in each direction. They both did a great job and wrote the states in their books.
Ronan asked to draw a picture of a spider and, though we have many drawings of spiders from Ronan, I allowed him to draw his best spider in his notebook since Halloween was the next day.
On Wednesday the boys earned Halloween stickers instead of stars after they accomplished an assignment. Jonas began with reading and writing. Lesson 5 in his book covered the sounds r and th. He practiced all of his sounds and then wrote words (but only after reading them to me) in his notebook.
Both boys drew a new picture of their bean plants. Their bean plants were sprouting above the soil!
We also began measuring their bean plants but have since decided to start all over again with a new bean so that we can get a daily measurement.
After school on Halloween we, of course, carved pumpkins. The boys were careful to save the seeds so that we could cook them. And after we returned from Trick-or-Treating I stole their Jack-O-Lanterns back and baked them (as the kids had carved my sugar pumpkins and a squash for baking).
Thursday the boys had one school assignment and that was to draw a map for their bat to get home. They both drew and owl as a danger for their bat (from Stellaluna I imagine) and told me how their bat had to get home according to directions (N, E, S, W).
The rest of Thursday and Friday the assignments were household clean-up in preparation for Jonas' birthday party Saturday. Jonas learned to sort laundry and began to help me load the machine. Ronan vacuumed the stairs and helped with general pick-up. And both boys helped with several other jobs each day until the party (although somewhat reluctantly, of course).
The party was fun too! :)
Ronan practiced writing his a's and t's (his choice) and made great progress in his handwriting. Then he wanted to draw a rainbow, and he told me that rainbows need water and light to exist (I think he learned this on "The Cat in the Hat, PBS kids." I helped him draw a rainbow with the right amount of spaces for colors and he colored it in with the colors: ROY G BIV.
Also on Monday we talked about the concepts of more than, less than and equal to. I showed Jonas and Ronan the symbols and we used blocks to decide which pile had more than, less than or the same number as the other pile. Then for Jonas I wrote out a page full of pairs of numbers and asked him to tell me which was greater than, less than and equal to it's pair. He breezed through the exercise like he'd known it forever. Ronan did quite well too, although I had to help him figure out which symbol to put he understood the concept.
Both boys practiced their violins.
On Tuesday the boys had riding lessons with Ms Monica and helped clean one really messy stall. After this we came home and they continued their studies on the directions (N, E, S, W). We used a place-mat map of the US and I asked them which state on their map was the furthest in each direction. They both did a great job and wrote the states in their books.
Ronan asked to draw a picture of a spider and, though we have many drawings of spiders from Ronan, I allowed him to draw his best spider in his notebook since Halloween was the next day.
On Wednesday the boys earned Halloween stickers instead of stars after they accomplished an assignment. Jonas began with reading and writing. Lesson 5 in his book covered the sounds r and th. He practiced all of his sounds and then wrote words (but only after reading them to me) in his notebook.
Both boys drew a new picture of their bean plants. Their bean plants were sprouting above the soil!
We also began measuring their bean plants but have since decided to start all over again with a new bean so that we can get a daily measurement.
After school on Halloween we, of course, carved pumpkins. The boys were careful to save the seeds so that we could cook them. And after we returned from Trick-or-Treating I stole their Jack-O-Lanterns back and baked them (as the kids had carved my sugar pumpkins and a squash for baking).
Although we did not put it in their notebooks we also practiced a lot of Spanish on Halloween. Especially Halloween words: Araña, fantásma, monstruo, murcielago...
Thursday the boys had one school assignment and that was to draw a map for their bat to get home. They both drew and owl as a danger for their bat (from Stellaluna I imagine) and told me how their bat had to get home according to directions (N, E, S, W).
The rest of Thursday and Friday the assignments were household clean-up in preparation for Jonas' birthday party Saturday. Jonas learned to sort laundry and began to help me load the machine. Ronan vacuumed the stairs and helped with general pick-up. And both boys helped with several other jobs each day until the party (although somewhat reluctantly, of course).
The party was fun too! :)
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